Brightsand

The surface is as clear and smooth as glass.
This lasts until a lone vacationer on a seadoo revs his engines and cuts an azure line across the water, from west to east.
I get buzzed by a pair of hummingbirds as I take my morning coffee on the back porch, watching the water stand perfectly still and the more ambitious residents take their dogs out for walks before 9AM.
If you walk to the waters, take the longest dock to the very edge, you see clouds of minnows darting, flowing, hiding among the reeds.
When I was younger, I’d use butterfly nets to try and catch them.
I’m really not sure what for. They didn’t taste good in the slightest.

My father’s never caught a fish at this lake in sixteen years.
I’ve never gone out fishing with him here either, I was
usually too busy with comic books and teenage sulking,
never really took an interest.
The first time we went out, as he was teaching me the finer points of casting out,
he flung the five-of-diamonds lure idly off the side of the boat and was
about to start elaborating on how fast you should reel in,
when a three-pound jackfish abruptly became
more gullible than usual.
He barely looked like a meal, so my father and I
threw him back in, assuming lightning would naturally strike twice.
We spent the rest of the week pulling in nothing but seaweed
and nobody believed us (we didn’t bring the camera.)
But we knew.

That said, the size of the fish grows by about a pound each time
the story gets retold around the campfire, over Coors and cocktails and
misshapen s’mores.

The baritones of the CKUA radio hosts slinks
through the walls, rumbling about thunderstorms
and community events
and abbreviated national news,
the glut of details left to clickbait articles
and in-depth analysis nobody out here
has any use for.
Slowly, your eyes stop searching
for the refresh button
and the iPhone chimes are buried
under birdsong, tall shoreline reeds
played by offshore breezes
and the hundredth retelling of
your favourite ghost story.